


Cherish This Lizard

by wordbending



Series: Undyne Appreciation Week [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphyne-Centric, F/F, Severe Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Undyne appreciation week, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 02:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11545857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Undyne visits Alphys’ apartment… but Alphys, for some reason, is nowhere to be found.For Day Two ofUndyne Appreciation Week: favorite thing about Undyne.





	Cherish This Lizard

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt, I chose as my favorite thing Undyne's strong sense of empathy: her ability to care about other people and to be calm, collected, and able to comfort people who need it.
> 
> My second favorite thing is, of course, her muscles.

With a single heavy crunch, Undyne kicked down the door to Alphys’ apartment. Literally – the door slammed into a wall on the opposite side of the room and fell in a heap to the floor.

  
“Alphy!!!” shouted Undyne, grinning from fin to fin. She waved a bouquet of sunflowers, sending petals floating to the apartment floor. “I did that thing from that anime you like! I got you plants!!!”

  
There was no response from Alphys. The tightly packed living room, with its high-definition television and hundreds of anime DVDs, figurines, consoles, and games, all cramped into a space a few broom closets wide, was even messier than normal. Everything was covered in dust, DVDs lay scattered all over the floor, and one of Alphys’ prized figures was laying in the middle of the room minus a head.

  
Undyne was sometimes impressed by Alphys’ capability for somehow destroying her own home. After all, Undyne had only been gone from Alphys’ apartment for _one day._

  
Undyne knew Alphys well enough that she knew when the house was this much of a mess, Alphys was usually sleeping on her cheap, second-hand couch covered in a blanket, a remote or a controller laying on the floor nearby. But Alphys wasn’t on the couch, or on the floor, or in her tiny kitchen that was nothing more than a fridge and a microwave.

  
“Alphys?” Undyne called, her face falling. Still no reply. A pang of fear suddenly shot through Undyne, which she quickly tried to push downwards. This wasn’t weird. Alphys did this kind of thing all the time. She was used to it.

  
Mostly.

  
Only one place left then, if she was home. Her bedroom.

  
Alphys’ bedroom.

  
The bedroom belonging to Alphys.

  
Undyne blushed. She shook her head, attempting to collect her thoughts – she’d been in Alphys’ bedroom before! Just, you know, usually… with Alphys there… Undyne felt herself blushing deeper.

  
“I’m coming in!” Undyne said, sidling towards the bedroom. Still no reply. She knocked on the door, but still, nothing happened, so Undyne finally turned the doorknob and slid the door open.

  
The door caught on something on the floor, some kind of unfinished machine, all wires and… green square… things. It only took a little of Undyne’s strength to get the door open, sending the machine – whatever it was - bouncing along the floor as the force of the door opening shoved it out of the way.

  
Undyne stuck her head through the door and peered around. There was nobody in the bed – though looking at Alphys’ bed forced Undyne to stop and keep herself in the present. She turned to Alphys’ desk, the one with the giant, weathered Mew Mew Kissy Cutie print. Next to the print was a dizzying array of statistics, drawings, and figures, written in Alphys’ scratchy, almost unreadable handwriting.

  
And there she was. Alphys was sitting in her chair, lying across the desk, several more unfinished machines and a variety of engineering tools scattered across the floor and across the desk’s surface. But, to Undyne’s shock, Alphys wasn’t sleeping. Instead, Alphys merely stared straight at her from where her head rested on her arms, her eyes empty and cold.

  
Undyne’s heart raced until Alphys finally, slowly blinked. Thanking whatever higher power was out there for it, Undyne pushed the door open the rest of the way and rushed to her side. She got down on her knees so she could sit at Alphys’ level, the bouquet of sunflowers tucked carefully under her arm.

  
“Alphy?” Undyne said, keeping her voice low and quiet. Alphys’ eyes glanced away from her, towards the desk – her snout remained buried between her arms. “Alphys, it’s me. I, uh, kind of kicked your door down again. Sorry. I got excited.”

  
Undyne lifted the bouquet of flowers from under her arm and raised it in front of Alphys. Many of the sunflowers had been crushed under it, and one of them was already starting to wilt.

 

“I got you these things!” Undyne said, grinning. “The flower lady was super cool, you should meet her sometime!”

  
With no expression, Alphys rolled her head so that she wasn’t facing Undyne anymore, but was now staring at the other wall. Undyne merely followed her to the other side.

  
Undyne was more afraid of how Alphys was acting then she was of anything, but she had seen Alphys’ bad days before. She’d seen Alphys at what she thought was her lowest – hell, she wasn’t totally stupid. She knew by now that the very first day she’d ever met Alphys was when Alphys was, in multiple ways, at her lowest possible point. But it didn’t make it any less frightening when she came to Alphys’ house and Alphys was giving her the cold, scaly shoulder.

  
When Undyne reached the other side, Alphys was crying. Undyne couldn’t hear it, but she could see it, the tears rolling down her white shirt, and it was enough for Undyne to almost feel her soul shatter.

  
“Alphys,” Undyne said, swallowing. She reached out a hand for Alphys’ shoulder, but hesitated, pulling her hand back. “Can I…?”

  
Alphys nodded slowly, sniffling. Gently, Undyne placed a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently.

  
“What’s up?” she said, her tone not at all casual. “You can talk to me, you know, Alphy? I’m your…”

  
Undyne blushed yet again.

  
“Your… your girlfriend. Y-you know.”

  
Alphys buried her head deeper in her arms. Undyne heard her say something, but it was so muffled she couldn’t understand it.

  
“Alphys… I can’t hear you.”

  
Alphys shifted just enough for her mouth to be free.

  
“I… I… I… d-d-don’t… I don’t deserve it,” Alphys said. Her voice was hoarse and quiet, like she didn’t want to speak, but also that she was having trouble being able to.

  
If Undyne hadn’t felt her heart breaking before, she was really feeling it now. Instantly, she opened her mouth to protest.

  
“I don’t d-d-deserve _you_ ,” Alphys continued. Her voice got more wobbly, less intelligible. “You… y-you’re… g-good. R-really good. And, and, I-I’m. I’m not. At all.”

  
“Alphy,” Undyne said quietly, continuing to rub her girlfriend’s shoulder. “You know that’s not true.”

  
Alphys didn’t respond. She only buried her head back in her arms, looking back down towards the desk.

  
“You’re not just good, Alphys! You’re amazing!” Undyne said, her eyes wide, clenching both her teeth and one of her fists. She kept her voice low, in something like a whispered shout. “You’re the smartest, coolest, most passionate nerd I’m ever met! Like I tell you all the time! And you’ve only got even cooler!!! You’re doing so much to help people with all your science stuff!!!”

  
Undyne heard a muffled scoff.

  
“I know… I know you feel you hurt people, really badly,” Undyne said, and Alphys tensed, coiling even further into herself. “But, but, Alphys… you remember what I told you back then. You told people the truth, and their families came back together, and everyone was happy, right? You did a really good thing!”

  
Alphys rose from her seated position, although she still didn’t quite look at Undyne. Undyne continued to rub her shoulder, as comfortingly as she could manage.

  
“I… I made them into…” Alphys started to say, her eyes looking more distant than ever. “…t-t-these t-things. These… creatures. It’s all my f-fault.”

  
Alphys rubbed at her tear-stained cheeks, burying her head in her hands.

  
“There’s n-nothing… n-nothing I, I, c-can do. To make up for that. Nothing.”

  
“Alphys,” Undyne said quietly. Alphys merely sniffled.

  
“Alphys,” Undyne tried again. “Alphys, I killed someone.”

  
Alphys’ head shot up. She opened her clawed fingers, peering through them with wide eyes.

  
“W-w-w-what?” Alphys stammered. “W-w-when?”

  
“When I was a teenager,” Undyne said. She raised her hand, jabbing a finger at her eyepatch. “It was a human kid. That’s how I lost this thing.”

  
Alphys lowered her hands. Her shoulders had tensed, as if she was afraid Undyne was going to kill _her._ Undyne reminded herself it was just the shock from what she’d said.

  
“And, you know, I never felt guilty about it. I spent so long feeling proud of it, happy about it. Until…” Undyne sighed. “You know. They happened.”

  
“Frisk.”

  
“Not just them either. All those kids I teach at the school, all the human ones. All the parents I speak to. All the parents I don’t speak to because those kids don’t have parents or their parents don’t care. That kid… that kid was probably just like those kids. You know? And I killed them. And it didn’t even make a difference in the end. It almost got _you_ killed, Alphys.”

  
She heard Alphys gulp.

  
“B-but… you didn’t k-know. You, you didn’t know h-humans could be g-good.”

  
Undyne looked away. “Yeah. I guess. But it doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”

  
Alphys folded her hands in front of her snout, twiddled her fingers together.

  
“I’m sorry.”

  
“It’s OK. It’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  
There was a long pause where neither of them said anything.

  
“I-I-It’s different for me,” Alphys eventually said, breaking the silence. “I wasn’t… I-I wasn’t t-t-trying to save us or anything. I wasn’t t-trying to break the b-barrier, not… n-not really. I was j-just… just being s-s-s-stupid. And d-desperate.”

  
Undyne tightened her grip on Alphys’ shoulder, but she gave her a small smile. “I was stupid and desperate too. It’s OK to be stupid sometimes, even when you’re as smart as you, Alphys.”

  
Alphys raised a hand and rubbed at her eye. “I g-guess so.”

  
Gently, carefully, Undyne leaned forward towards Alphys. Alphys blinked in surprise before Undyne, her face a deep shade of green, kissed her on the forehead. Alphys replied, with much less warning, by grabbing Undyne’s head with both hands and pulling her all the way in. She smashed her lips against hers clumsily, her hands pulling Undyne as close to her as she could.

  
Undyne could barely react. Her heart did more than skip a beat, it played a game of hopscotch over the beats. Her face was so green that she looked like a completely different species.

  
But, then, when Alphys pulled away, her face a deep, deep red that set off her bright yellow scales, Undyne started to laugh.

  
“I love you, Alphy. You know that? I’ll always love you.”

  
“I… I…” Alphys smiled at her. “I love you too.”

  
Undyne grinned her toothy grin. “Hell yeah.”

  
She leaned in for another kiss, but Alphys only wrapped her arms around her neck and pulled her into a hug instead, resting her head on Undyne’s neck. Undyne smiled and reached up to pat her on the back.

  
“Hey, uh, what you do say I get you a blanket? And, um…” Undyne scratched the back of her head with her other hand, looking away. “You can… go take a nap. And I could, um, maybe, sleep… in the same bed… as you? And we could… uh… we could…”

  
“Cuddle?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
Alphys gave her a small, soft smile.

  
“That sounds nice.”


End file.
